A vehicle registration plate, known by various names such as number plate or license plate, serves as an official identification tag for motor vehicles. Required for commercial road vehicles in all countries, registration plates uniquely identify a vehicle within the issuing region's register. In Morocco, as in many other countries, these plates are essential for regulatory and identification purposes.
In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Thus, it is normally illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates, because such unauthorized private manufacturing is equivalent to forging an official document.
Let's delve into the specifics of Moroccan license plates, exploring their structure, types, and the technology used for their recognition.
Structure and Formats
Normal vehicles in Morocco have number plates starting with the letter B, followed by three digits, and then three letters. The digits and letters are assigned by a registrar. To avoid confusion with the letter O, the three letters never include the letter Q. Government vehicles all have the prefix "BX", these number plates have a white reflective background with red lettering at the front and white on red at the rear.
Here's a breakdown of the key elements:
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- Normal vehicles: Plates start with the letter "B," followed by three digits and three letters.
- Government vehicles: Plates have the prefix "BX" with a white reflective background and red lettering.
- Diplomatic vehicles: Plates begin with two numerals indicating the embassy, followed by "CD" (Corps Diplomatique), "CC" (Consular Corps status), or "CT" (Foreign Technical and Advisory personnel), and then three serial digits.
Vehicles are fitted with registration plates in the front and rear of the vehicle. Motorcycles (50cc or more) must be licensed and only bear rear plates. Registration is performed at the local police or Gendarmerie station. The first digits of the plate indicate the province in which the vehicle is registered. Private passenger car registration plates have a white background with black letters and digits. Plates exist in a long pattern and a rectangular pattern, similar in size and appearance to French plates.
Historical Context
France was the first country to introduce the registration plate with the enactment of the Paris Police Ordinance on 14 August 1893, followed by Germany in 1896. The Netherlands was the first country to introduce a national registration plate, called a "driving permit", in 1898.
The current scheme of regular license plates was introduced in 1985. It has AB1234V formats or AB123VH where AB is the code region, 1234 is the number, and SH is the series. The regular plate has an orange background with black marks.
Special Plates
Morocco also utilizes special plates for specific vehicle types and purposes:
- Diplomatic Plates: These plates start with two numerals indicating the embassy to which they are attached, followed by two letters "CD" (Corps Diplomatique), "CC" (Consular Corps status) or "CT" (Foreign Technical and Advisory personnel) and another three digits which are serial.
- Trailer Plates: Trailer series over 750 kg have the letter 'A'.
The Arabic text in the left box translates as El Maghreb = Morocco.
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Détection et Reconnaissance des Plaques d'Immatriculation Au Maroc
Technology in License Plate Recognition
Advancements in technology have paved the way for automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems. These systems are crucial for law enforcement, traffic management, and security applications. A graduation project from the High School of Technology of Meknes focused on developing such a system, addressing the challenges posed by the variance in the shapes of Moroccan license plates.
The approach involved using object detection to identify plate characters from images. Instead of relying on existing libraries like easyOCR or Tesseract (due to their limitations with Moroccan plates), the project team built two separate models. The myssd_mobilenetv2_320x320 model with the TensorFlow framework was selected. This model, a Single-Shot multibox Detection (SSD) network, is known for its efficiency and novel depthwise separable convolutions.
The process involves two main steps:
- Detection: The model identifies license plates within an image frame and filters the results to select the plate with the highest confidence.
- Recognition: The model identifies the characters on the plate, but initially, they are unordered.
To implement this system, the necessary models are generated using the notebook docs/Training_Models.ipynb and placed in a directory called "models".
Here's a table summarizing the key types of Moroccan license plates:
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| Plate Type | Format | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Normal Vehicles | B + 3 Digits + 3 Letters | Standard license plates for private vehicles. |
| Government Vehicles | BX + Digits and Letters | White reflective background with red lettering. |
| Diplomatic Vehicles | 2 Digits + CD/CC/CT + 3 Digits | Identifies vehicles belonging to embassies and consulates. |
| Trailer Series | A + Digits and Letters | Used for trailers over 750 kg. |
Understanding the intricacies of Moroccan license plates provides valuable insights into the country's vehicle registration system and the technological advancements driving its evolution. From the standard formats to the specialized plates and the ALPR systems in development, these plates play a crucial role in identification and regulation.
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tags: #Moroccan
